Eleven years after stunning Cannes with the searing Holocaust drama “Son of Saul,” which won the Grand Prix and went on to earn the Oscar for best international feature, Hungarian filmmaker Laszlo Nemes returns to the Croisette with another harrowing journey into WWII in Europe. But while “Son of Saul” immersed audiences in the machinery of extermination, Nemes’ new competition entry, “Moulin,” explores France under the German occupation through the eyes of French Resistance hero Jean Moulin.
Rather than doing a biopic of Moulin, Nemes charts the final 10 days before his death and his chilling confrontation with Klaus Barbie, the infamous Nazi officer known as the “Butcher of Lyon.” Played by Gilles Lellouche in a transformative performance opposite a haunting Lars Eidinger as Barbie, “Moulin” is an “immersive take on what he went through and the choices he made,” Laszlo told Variety in an interview ahead of the Cannes Film Festival.
“There are elements of a spy movie, adventurousness, some epic quality,” Nemes says. “It’s a confrontational movie, and the tension of that confrontation between Barbie and Moulin is at the heart of it.”
For Nemes, who spent part of his childhood under Hungary’s communist dictatorship before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the material resonated. “I cherish those memories in my gut of what it was to live in a world that’s not free. We were yearning so much to be free. Sometimes the West doesn’t quite understand how lucky they are to be free.”
Nemes says he was especially drawn to the philosophical and moral dimensions of Moulin’s resistance. “It was almost like a clash of civilizations between a view of the world that’s humanism and a world focused on destroying anything good in humans,” he says. “This confrontation between these two men says something about human civilization and its two faces.”
The filmmaker also wanted to steer clear of caricatures on either side of the conflict. “I didn’t want a circus Nazi,” he says of Eidinger’s portrayal of Barbie. “I also didn’t want two-dimensional heroes on Jean Moulin’s side either. The foundational fact is that both men are humans, not demons or gods. There are two ways a human being can evolve.”
“Moulin,” produced by Alain Goldman at Pitchipoï Prods. and Montmartre Films, in co-production with TF1 Films Production, marks Nemes’ first French-language feature and is one of the several WWII-set movies bowing at Cannes, alongside Emmanuel Marre’s “A Man of His Name,” Antonin Baudry’s “De Gaulle” and Daniel Auteuil’s “La Troisieme Nuit.”
“The resistance years were almost like a civil war in France,” Nemes says. “When tyranny takes over a society, you have to choose your side, and whatever your choice is — even if you’re indifferent — you’ve chosen a side.” He says the current fragility of democracy is the reason why stories set during World War II feel particularly timely today. “This friction between democracy and tyranny is still at the heart of our times,” he says. “Maybe that’s why people keep coming back to it.”
Nemes will next make his English-language debut with “Outer Dark,” a Cormac McCarthy adaptation, with Jacob Elordi and Lily-Rose Depp. He previous two films, “Orphan” and “Sunset,” both world- premiered at Venice.
Congratulations on presenting “Moulin” in competition at the Cannes Film Festival — a comeback after 11 years. This is another film set during WWII, but from a completely different perspective.
The good thing about starting with a Holocaust movie is that you learn early on the sense of responsibility you have as a filmmaker when you tackle a subject of that importance and cultural weight. Making my first French-language movie about the resistance, collaboration, and World War II is a big undertaking, but that sense of responsibility has helped me. It’s from the perspective of another man — this time a historical figure and French national hero, Jean Moulin. The film is about his last 10 days and his confrontation with Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon. Many people in France know the name but don’t necessarily know the real man behind it. Internationally, it’s an even bigger question whether people know about him. The more I learned about him, the more I thought he deserved a film that wouldn’t be a biopic but a more immersive take on what he went through and the choices he made.
How familiar were you with Jean Moulin, and why did you want to make a movie about him?
I’m pretty familiar. Although I’m from Hungary, at some point we emigrated to France with my mother, so I did all my studies there. I studied history and political history, including 19th and 20th century French political history. But I didn’t know Jean Moulin’s history specifically. When they sent me the first version of the script, I started really diving into it. I wanted to know more than just the historian’s take — I wanted to know the man he might have been. I read a fascinating book called Alias Caracalla by his former assistant in the resistance, Daniel Cordier. That book gave me a very personal insight into Jean Moulin’s internal story and his philosophy of life and art. He was such an interesting man that I really felt close to him as a human being. I was drawn to him naturally, and I thought he deserved something that would go beyond just an empty, obligatory homage.
Did you work with historians? How did you research and write the script?
Olivier Demangel originally wrote the script. He has a historical background and is versed in history, and I’m also very interested in it. When we worked together on subsequent versions, we were very mindful of what we could say and what we couldn’t. You don’t know that much about Moulin’s last 10 days, but my interest is always to know as many accurate details as possible — and then in the spaces between, you can inject fiction. Finding those spaces requires a sense of responsibility. That was the challenge of the movie.
Why did you decide to focus on the last 10 days of his life?
That was Olivier’s proposition, and that’s also why they approached me. You couldn’t encompass the entire life of Jean Moulin — that would be a biopic, and we didn’t want that. They were more interested in something immersive, and how to do that better than to recount his last days at the hands of Klaus Barbie? Not a biopic — that was very important.
So it was a project brought to you. How did you make it your own?
By meeting Jean Moulin in my readings — meeting the man behind the official figure, the homage, and the hero. To really uncover what’s behind the hero. He was such a humanist. It was almost like a clash of civilizations between a view of the world that’s humanism and a world focused on destroying anything good in humans. This confrontation between these two men says something about human civilization and its two faces.
Is there action in it, or is it just torture scenes?
That’s something I was very keen on avoiding. It’s not about the demise of one human body. We didn’t want to go into “the Passion of Jean Moulin.” I didn’t want to put the viewer in a voyeur’s perspective. I was much more interested in the viewer becoming a friend to Jean Moulin — a friend and a witness. This already guided my journey on “Son of Saul:” how to make the viewer a witness. That creates a very interesting emotional thing.
It’s a very different movie from “Son of Saul,” so don’t picture it as “Son of Saul 2.” The language is different, but there are invisible links between the films. The importance of humans and humanity in the darkest hours is something that guides me. So no, it’s not a torture movie.
Would you say it’s a thriller?
It’s a cross — there are elements of a spy movie, elements of adventurousness, some epic quality. It’s a confrontational movie, and the tension of that confrontation between Barbie and Moulin is at the heart of it.
I saw some clips, and Lars Eidinger looks really creepy. And Gilles Lellouche doesn’t even look like Gilles Lellouche.
They both worked a lot to get where they were, and they understood my approach. I didn’t want a circus — circus Nazis. I didn’t want two-dimensional heroes on Jean Moulin’s side either. They both knew what the traps were. For Gilles, the mission was to be as truthful as possible, to find something in himself that was that guy — Jean Moulin — and keep a certain simplicity. He was a very hard worker. Every morning I’d go see him in makeup and we’d talk about the lines and the scene. Even after the 50th conversation about a scene, he might still say, “No, let’s go for a more simple way of doing this.” Or I would.
On Lars’s side, I didn’t want the circus Nazi. I also didn’t want to go into psychology, trying to uncover the layers of his soul. I wanted someone a little like Max von Sydow in certain very cold roles in Bergman’s movies — simplicity and purity, but something that troubles the viewer in their heart about how a human being can become something like that. The foundational fact is that both men are humans, not demons or gods. There are two ways a human being can evolve.
Gilles Lellouche told me once that there were real neo-Nazis on the shoot — that you wanted things to be that truthful.
We didn’t do it on purpose, but sometimes when you work with extras in Hungary, you find out… They weren’t actually neo-Nazis — we had some reenactors. The guys who worked with me even on “Son of Saul” said, “We’re not Nazis, we don’t like that, we just like the uniforms.” They were like kids playing around with their uniforms… There’s a fascination for something out of the ordinary — in a bad way, obviously.
Where did you shoot the movie?
In Budapest. We scanned Lyon for the visual effects and used quite a lot of original photos from the time. Lyon today is so different from 1943 that we would have had to redress and redraw everything in post-production anyway. For budgetary reasons, we chose Hungary. That’s a way to control the film so we can put the most percentage of the funds on the screen and not somewhere else.
In a studio in Budapest?
No, mainly on real locations. We integrated a lot of Lyon’s vistas, and Budapest from some perspectives really looks like Lyon. Budapest can act as different cities. Lyon is a good match because of the hilly side — there’s a flat side and a hilly side, and the architecture has very big similarities.
You said we see the movie through Jean Moulin’s eyes. How are you telling the bigger story inside this story?
You’ll have to watch the movie, but we really focused on the human perception and his own journey — the fog of war, if you will, of the main character. There’s no cutting away. We follow him through this ordeal and the spiraling Nazi system. There’s a constant question: what will become of him, how can he get out of this? But it’s also the human side of Jean Moulin that I wanted to communicate, and how it goes beyond his own person. It’s a personal, immersive story.
There have been so many movies recently set in this era. Why do you think that is?
There’s a fascination for historical times. The resistance, the collaboration, the occupation — these things tremendously marked and traumatized the continent, especially France. Even the Second World War has been somehow romanticized in films and TV.
The resistance years were almost like a civil war in France. When tyranny takes over a society, you have to choose your side, and whatever your choice is — even if you’re indifferent — you’ve chosen a side. You’ve chosen nihilism. This friction between democracy and tyranny is still at the heart of our times. Maybe that’s why people keep coming back to it.
It feels very relevant today, with the rise of the far right.
There’s always an attraction for tyranny. I grew up partly in a dictatorship — I was a kid in a tyrannical system before the Berlin Wall fell. I cherish those memories in my guts of what it was to live in a world that’s not free. We were yearning so much to be free. Sometimes the West doesn’t quite understand how lucky they are to be free.
Can creating under repression be inspiring? Is constraint a catalyst?
Pressure is both bad and good — it’s a catalyst. In the face of tyranny, you have to show your real face. Maybe that’s why people are so interested in periods that are historically dense and conflictual, like the Second World War — because people show their real faces.
Watching another upcoming Cannes film, “De Gaulle,” I learned that most French people were actually pro-collaboration at the start. We have a romanticized vision of the French resistance, but people like Jean Moulin were rare.
He was very alone. They didn’t have enough manpower or organizational structure to liberate people or carry out big actions. It was very difficult to finance them, to maintain the structure, to avoid traitors. It was a very complex day-to-day operation. People aren’t fully aware of how complicated, down-to-earth, dirty, and full of suffering the resistance was. They were more marginal than we think.
Do you hope the film will be shown in schools? What do you want it to achieve?
Yes, I hope it can get into schools. I think it can travel beyond borders — it’s not only a film for the French. I wanted to make a movie that speaks universally to audiences worldwide. It’s a love letter to France, but it’s beyond that. There’s something in Jean Moulin’s story that’s universal — how isolated and alone he was in 1943. It’s something very human and very fragile, and it has to be cherished, not just celebrated mindlessly but understood emotionally — what he did and what he went through.
What are you doing next?
We’re planning to start production on a film called “Outer Dark,” a Cormac McCarthy adaptation, with Jacob Elordi and Lily-Rose Depp. They’re very committed to making it happen, and I really hope we can shoot it next Spring. It will be my first English-language movie. It’s a very ambitious film — a dark fairy tale bordering on horror.
Do Jacob and Lily-Rose know each other?
Not yet. But it doesn’t really matter, because it’s almost like two separate paths in the movie — they almost never meet. They start together and then go on their quest, the brother trying to find the sister. It’s a kind of road movie.
Some filmmakers have had bad experiences moving to English — like Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck after “The Lives of Others.“
That can happen when you just hear the mermaids and don’t pay attention to what it entails. For me, it’s very important to keep control and deliver something meaningful. I have to be there — I can’t give up that kind of control. I’d like to shoot it in Hungary. It’s still cheaper than the U.S., but more importantly, I can control the coordinates much better there. We can spend more money on the film and less on everything else.
What are the things that you absolutely want and need to control when you’re making a film?
My crew. I’ve invested in my relationship with my cinematographer. I know what I can expect, what’s doable to build, how to drive them, how to manage the budget. It’s direct management — I don’t have to go through intermediaries. We’re in charge of the movie, and there are no foreseeable bad surprises.
I tend to work with people I really like — who invest energy and creative effort in my films: my cinematographer, my editor, visual effects supervisor. We’ve built that up over the years. It’s almost like a workshop. It’s not just me making a movie — we’re in the same boat. That happened on “Moulin” too. From the first assistant directors to Gilles Lellouche to my cinematographer and editor, we were all in a creative engagement. We have to build it up, not just shoot everything and fix it in the edit.
